Pidgin and Creole

Languages

By Moazzam Ali

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 Introduction
 A variety of language without native speakers
which arises in a language contact situation of
multilingualism, and operates as a lingua franca.

 Pidgin language can have native speakers , but

that Pidgin is called Creole.

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 Some Encyclopedic Definitions
 A simplified form of speech that is usually a mixture of two
or more languages, has a rudimentary grammar and
vocabulary, is used for communication between groups
speaking different languages, is not spoken as a first or
native language, but used as contact language.

 Pidgin, language based on another language, but with a

sharply curtailed vocabulary (often 700 to 2000 words) and
grammar; native to none of its speakers; and used as a
lingua franca, or a language used as a means of
communication between peoples with different native
languages.

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 Lingua Franca

 In an educational publication related to vernacular

languages in Paris 1953, UNESCO defined a lingua
franca related to vernacular languages as „a language
which is used habitually by people whose mother
tongues are different in order to facilitate communication
between them‟.

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 Characteristics of Pidgin
 Pidgin is itself a language

 A pidgin based on a language X is not just as

an example of „bad X‟.As one might describe
the unsuccessful attempt of an individual to
learn X. It is itself a language with a community
of speakers and with its own history. Each
pidgin has well formed linguistic system and is
learnt in the same way as other languages are
learnt.

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No native speaker

 Pidgins, unlike other ordinary languages,

have no native speakers which is the
consequence of the fact that it is used only
for communication between members of
different communities.

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 Terminology
 The word pidgin, formerly also spelled pigeon derives from a
Chinese (Cantonese) language which means „business‟
 Originally used to describe Chinese Pidgin English, it was
later generalized to refer to any pidgin.
 Pidgin may also be used as the specific name for a local
pidgin in places where they are spoken.
 For example, the name of Tok Pisin derives from the English
words talk pidgin, and its speakers usually refer to it simply
as “Pidgin” when speaking English.
 The term jargon has also been used to describe pidgins and
is found in the names of some pidgins such as Chinook
Jargon.

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 Development of Pidgin Language
 As a result of European settlers bringing to the Caribbean
area large numbers of slaves from West Africa who spoke
different languages, other pidgins evolved in that region
based on English, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Spanish.
 Creation of a pidgin usually requires:
 Prolonged, regular contact among different language
communities.
 A need to communicate between them.
 An absence of a widespread, accessible inter-language.
 Keith Whinnom (in Hymes 1971) suggests that pidgins need
three languages to form, with one being clearly dominant
over the others.
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 Common Traits among Pidgins
 Since a Pidgin strives to be a simple and effective form of
communication, the grammar, phonology, etc, are as simple as
possible, and usually consist of :
 A Subject-Verb-object word order in a sentence.
 Uncomplicated clausal structure( no embedded clauses).
 Less codas within syllables (Syllables consist of a vowel, with an
optional initial consonant).
 Basic Vowel, like /a/ /i/ /u/ /e/ /o/
 No tones, such as those found in West African and East Asians
languages.
 Separate words to indicate tense, usually preceding the verbs.
 Words are reduplicated to represent plurals, superlatives, and other
parts of speech that represent the concept being increased
 A lack of morphophonemic variation.

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Superstratum & Substratum
Languages
 While a pidgin is used by speakers of different
languages, it is typically based on the lexicon of what is
called a “dominant” language in the area where it is
spoken.
 Dominant languages were typically those of the
European colonialists, e.g., French, English, Dutch, etc.
 The dominant language is called the lexifier, or the
superstratum language.
 The native languages of pidgin users are called
substratum languages.

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Linguistic Properties of
Pidgins
 As you should expect, pidgins are very simple in their
linguistic properties.

1) Lexicon

 Words from lexifier languages;

 Words belong to open classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives)
 No or few prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, etc.

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Linguistic Properties of
Pidgins
 Since pidgin vocabulary is pretty limited, meanings are
extended.
 So, stick is not only used for sticks, but also for trees, in
Solomon Islands Pidgin.
 In Korean Bamboo English, grass is used in “gras bilong
head” to mean “hair”, and in “gras bilong mouth” to mean
“moustache”.
 Compounds are also frequent, e.g., dog baby for
“puppy”, or
 “Him cow pig have kittens?”

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Linguistic Properties of
Pidgins
2) Phonology:
 Phoneme inventory: Consonants and vowels that are
phonetically easy.
 Syllable structure: Typically CV or CVC.
 Stress: fixed stress location.
3) Morphology:
 Pretty much none. No tense or aspect marking. No
 agreement, either.
4) Syntax:
 Sentences are simple and short with no embedding
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 Geographical Distribution
 Pidgin and Creole languages are distributed, mainly
found in the Caribbean and around the North and East
coasts of South America, around the coasts of Africa and
across the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
 A basic authoritative source on their distribution is
Hancock(1977):
 He lists 127 pidgin and creole languages. Thirty-five of
these are described as being English-based.
 These include such languages as: Hawaiin Creole, Gullah
or Sea Islands (spoken on the island off the coasts of
northern Florida and South Carolina), Camaroon Pidgin
English ,Tok-Pisin and Chinese Pidgin English.
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 Other fifteen are described as being French-based
Louisiana, Haitian and Mauritian. They are mutually
intelligible.

 Fourteen others are listed as Portuguese-based i.e

Papiamentu, Guine and Sengal spoken.
 Seven are Spanish-based Cocolichi spoken by Italian
immigrants.
 Five are Dutch-based, Virgin Islands and Afrikaan.
 Three are on Italian-based, Asmara Pidgin (spoken in parts
 of Ethiopia).
 Six are Garman-based Yiddish and Gastarbeiter spoken in
West Germany.
 The rest are based on a variety of other languages;
Russenorsk (Russian and Norwegian), Chinook Jargon
(Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada); Sango
(Central African Republic)…etc.
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 Hawaiian Pidgin is spoken by many people who live in Hawaii, but
mostly by teenagers .Majority of the words and phrases are versions of
English slang, with words from other languages that make up Pidgin.

30/11/07
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 Hawaiian Pidgin

 No can----------- cannot.
 Talk stink---------- speaking bad about someone.
 Wat doing--------- what are you doing?
 If I come stay go, an you no stay come, wat foa I
go?-----------If I come and you are not there, why
should I go?

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The following is “A Mother Goose” nursery (The
Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe) translated into
Hawaiian Pidgin:
 Hawaiian Pidgin English (HPE), ignoring pronunciation:

 - You see, I got wood there; plenty men here no job,

come steal.
 - Honolulu come; plenty more come; too much
pineapple there.
 - No can. I try hard get good ones. Before, plenty
duck; now, no more.
 - All ‟ight, all ‟ight, I go; all same, by‟n bye. Honolulu all
Japanese.
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The following is “A Mother Goose” nursery (The
Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe) translated into
Hawaiian Pidgin:
 Dere waz one ol Tutu- (Tutu-grandmother)
 Stay living in one slippa- (slippa-sandals)
 She get choke kids---- (choke- a lot)
 Planny braddahs and one sistah- ( sistah-sister)
(braddahs-brothers)
(Planny- plenty)
 But no da poi-(Poi-a Hawaiian food made of taro)
 Den broke dere okoles (Okoles-butt)
 And sent dem moi moi (Moi Moi-sleep)

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Tok Pisin Pidgin:
Reading Shakespeare
Julius Caesar(Act 3, Scene 2)  Tok Pisin
Friends, Romans, countrymen, Pren, man bolong Tom,
Wantok, harim nau. Mi kam
not to praise him. tasol long plantim Kaesar. Mi
The evil that men do lives after noken beiten longen. Sopos
them; sampela wok bolong wampela
The good is oft interred with man I stret; sampela I no stret;
na man I dai; ol I wallis long
their bones; wok I no stret tasol. Gutpela
So let it be with Caesar. wok bolonged I slip; I lus
nating long giraun wantaim
long Kalopa. Fesin bolong
yumi man. Maski Kaesar tu,
gutpela wok I slip.
 Pidginization

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 Pidginization
 The process by which a pidgin develops is
called pidginization. This process of
pidginization involves:

 Admixture
 Reduction
 Simplification

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 Pidginization
Admixture
 The mixing of elements from one language or
dialect into another. In the process of
pidginization the transfer of grammatical
patterns and other features from one language
to another take place.e.g.Okay is a west African
origin imported into a local English based pidgin.

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 Pidginization
Reduction:
 It refers to the process whereby large part of the
source language that are available to the native
speakers are lost or not acquired by the
pidginizing non native speakers.
Simplification
 It refers to the phenomena such as loss of
grammatical gender, loss of case endings and
an increase in lexical transparency, e.g.,
replacement of optician by eye-doctor.

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Continue…..
 Comparisons between pidgin and source
language show that the source language has a
large vocabulary, and have a large repertoire of
styles, phonological units, syntactic devices and
the grammatical units. Reduction may be
repaired by the process of expansion if
creolization occurs.

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 Vocabulary of pidgin has great
similarities to that of source language:
 Vocabulary of pidgin has great similarities to
that of dominant source language:
 However, Phonological and morphological
simplifications often lead to words assuming
somewhat different shapes. Vocabulary is
limited and carries heavy burden of meanings.
It is some time necessary to use reduplicative
pattern to avoid possible confusion or to
express certain concepts.

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Continue…
 Consequently we find pairs like talk(talk),
talk talk ( chatter), looklook (,looklook
(stare) San (sun), sansan (sand).
 Certain concepts require elaborate
encoding. e.g. Hair—is gras bilong hed,
beard---is gras bilong fes.

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 Depiginization

The linguistic processes of complication,

purification and expansion, by which a pidgin or
pidginized variety of language comes to
resemble or become identical with the source
language from which it was originally derived.
This may occur if the speakers of pidgin have
extensive contacts with the speakers of source
language.

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Think !!!!!
 Suppose you‟re a child born in a speech community
where a pidgin is spoken (either by your parents or by
the other kids in the neighborhood). The pidgin
utterances are your primary linguistic data (PLD).

 But remember that a pidgin is not a natural language.

 So, what language are you going to end up learning on

the basis of these PLD?

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Questions ??????

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 Creole

M. Moazzam Ali

31
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Birth of Creole
 As it turns out, kids impose structure on the language
 input they receive, ending up with a language that has
 prepositions, articles, tense marking, aspect
 morphology, embedded sentences, etc.
 No, UG does. We‟ll get back to this later, though.
 When a pidgin is acquired as a first language by a
 generation of children, it becomes a creole. A creole
 thus, unlike a pidgin, is a natural language

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Creole
 The term comes from the Portuguese crioulo, and
originally meant a person of European descent who had
been born and brought up in a colonial territory. Later, it
came to be applied to other people who were native to
these areas, and then to the kind of language the spoke.

 Creoles are typically classified based on their lexifier

language, e.g., English-based, Frenchbased,etc.

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Decreolization
 Creoles tend to co-exist with their lexifier languages in
the same speech community. Since they are based on
these languages, at least lexically, they come to be
viewed as “nonstandard” varieties of the lexifier
language.
 As we noted a couple of weeks ago, under desires for
overt prestige, some speakers start to move away from
the creole to the standard lexifier language, in what is
often called decreolizatoin.

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The Post-creole continuum
 As a result of decreolizatoin, a range of creole
 varieties exist in a continuum. The variety
 closest to the standard language is called the
 acrolect, the one least like the standard is
 called the basilect, and in between these two is
 a range of creole varieties that are called
 mesolects:
<-------------------------------------------------->
Acrolect Mesolect Basilect

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 Origin of Pidgin and Creoles
 One view is that every creole is a unique independent
development, a product of language contact in a
particular area.

 The problem with this polygenesis approach is that it

does not account for the fact that creole languages
around the world share a lot of similarities with regard to
their linguistic properties

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 Theories of Origin
 One idea is that the pidgins arise because the people
who lack the ability to learn the standard language with
which the pidgins are associated.

 According to „ baby talk‟ theory, the pidgins and creoles

result from Europeans deliberately simplifying their
languages in order to communicate with others.

 According to this African Sub-stratum theory: Pidgins

and creoles retain certain characteristics of ancestral
African languages (Sabir). (monogenesis)

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 Pidgin Theories………
 Monogenesis
 Perhaps pidgins and creoles all came from the same ancestor
language then?
 This is the monogenesis view. A candidate common origin
has actually been suggested. All the present European-
language-based pidgins and creoles are derived from a single
source i.e., the Mediterranean lingua franca known as Sabir.
 According to Relexification theory, in 15th or 16th century
Portuguese relexified that language, that is, they added their
own vocabulary to grammatical structure of Sabir. Evidence
for this view comes from the fact that there is a considerable
number of Portuguese words in the pidgins and creoles of the
world.
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Pidgin Theories………
 Polygenesis
 According to polygenesis theory, pidgins and creoles
have a variety of origins; any similarities among them
arise from the shared circumstances of the origins.

 For example: speakers of English have to make

themselves understood for the purposes of trade and
those with them, have to be understood.

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 References:
 Waradhaugh,Ronald.(1990) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics
 (seventh). London: Typeset by Katerprint Co. Ltd,
 Oxford.
 Hudson, R. A.(1996). Sociolinguistics (second edition). London:
 Cambridge University Press.
 Trudgell, Peter. (1992). Introducing Language and Society
 (First addition) Pengouin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
 Harmond, Middlesex, England.
 Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.
 Columbia Encyclopedia.
 Internet, Google Website, etc sources.

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 Thanks

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